


sliding in all directions

by jeyhawk



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-21
Updated: 2010-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 08:52:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeyhawk/pseuds/jeyhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>High School AU.</i> Most of the time Kris is okay, he really is, but then out of the blue a stray thought will hit him from that subconscious part of the mind that just <i>won't get it</i> and the hurt will come back to the front like it was yesterday and not three years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sliding in all directions

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** This fic deals with grief and bullying in ways that might potentially be triggering.
> 
> Written for [](http://jenepel.livejournal.com/profile)[**jenepel**](http://jenepel.livejournal.com/) who asked for high school AU in one of the [](http://ontd-ai.livejournal.com/profile)[**ontd_ai**](http://ontd-ai.livejournal.com/) charity drives. I hope you like it, even if it took me ridiculously long to finish it. :D
> 
> A huge thanks goes out to [](http://dansetheblues.livejournal.com/profile)[**dansetheblues**](http://dansetheblues.livejournal.com/) as usual. Words are not enough to express how valuable her feedback is to me even when we agree to disagree.  <333
> 
> [](http://kristina-bitch.livejournal.com/profile)[ **kristina_bitch**](http://kristina-bitch.livejournal.com/) took the time to assure me this fic doesn't suck. Thanks, BB.  <333
> 
> The title is stolen and paraphrased from a Leonard Cohen song.
> 
>   
>    
> 

Most of the time Kris is okay, he really is, but then out of the blue a stray thought will hit him from that subconscious part of the mind that just _won't get it_ and the hurt will come back to the front like it was yesterday and not three years ago.

Today would have been his mother's birthday. Three minutes ago he idly wondered what to get her, and now he's sitting in an abandoned classroom trying to catch his breath. He wishes he could reach into his brain and just shut off that stupid Neanderthal part of it that seems to live in the past, because feeling like this sucks.

He starts when the door to the classroom opens, lame apology already forming on his lips, but it's not a teacher spilling inside, it's Adam Lambert with his backpack half on, half off his shoulder and an angry red mark spreading over one of his cheeks. Adam slams the door shut and leans back against it, shoulders visibly slumping, and suddenly Kris feels as if he's the one intruding and not the other way around.

Kris stares down at his hands while he waits for Adam to notice him, wondering if maybe he should say something. He doesn't know Adam other than through the rumor mill, but he doubts that even half of the things people say about him are true. He's just as different on the outside as Kris feels on the inside, and there's nothing wrong with being strange.

"Fuck," Adam curses and Kris looks up to find that Adam finally spotted him, eyes narrowed in a way that belies the embarrassed flush across his cheekbones.

"Uh… hi," Kris says, feeling lame and stupid and still so very, very sad.

"What are you doing here?" Adam asks, with barely masked hostility, as if Kris committed a major crime by hiding away from the prying eyes of the hallway for a moment when Adam is obviously doing the exact same thing.

Kris shrugs; he doesn't feel like explaining his trauma to someone that doesn't seem like he'd listen anyway.

"Whatever," Adam says haughtily, and then he's turning around and disappearing outside again, back held rigid and head held high.

Kris waits for another few minutes before he follows him, the sadness pushed to the back of his mind for now.

*

Three days later the rumor mill says Adam broke his arm tripping on the stairs. Someone makes a joke about wardrobe-related injuries and someone else makes one about the dangers of wearing shades inside. Kris stupidly thinks that his mom would have liked Adam and then he has to go sit in the bathroom for a while, until he stops feeling so sad.

It could have ended there, but a couple of days later Adam interrupts his breathing time again. Kris is hiding in an empty classroom again, and this time Adam doesn't spot him as he slips in through the door, too focused, maybe, on his own demons. Kris doesn't know what to do with the dark form slumped against the door, arms wrapped tight around his knees and forehead resting against them - there should be an emergency exit for times like these because Adam is blocking the only way out.

"Are you okay?" Kris eventually asks, because he's beginning to feel like a creeper and commenting on the weather would just make him feel like an ass.

Adam twitches, and when he looks up Kris can see the panic in his eyes before he spots Kris and the shutters are pulled again.

"I'm fine," Adam says, voice sharp and brittle at the same time. "What are you doing here?"

Kris thinks that level of hostility is pretty rich coming from someone who's sitting on the floor and blocking the only exit, but he just shrugs again, letting his eyes skate to the side.

"Just thinking," he says.

Adam huffs, pushing himself up awkwardly. "Yeah, I bet you have _lots_ of problems," he says and then he's gone again.

Kris stares at the closed door for a while, dumbstruck by the realization that Adam doesn't _know_.

*

The third time Kris bumps into Adam is in the music room and while he spots Adam the moment he opens the door he just doesn't care because he needs a minute, just a minute, to breathe. Today isn't a good day. It's not as bad as some, but it's definitely not good and Kris just needs a moment where he doesn't have to pretend that everything is fine.

"You look like shit," Adam remarks, and for once he doesn't sound hostile.

Kris ignores him and focuses on breathing, pushing the sadness back and down until he feels like he can smile again even if it's fake. When he opens his eyes Adam's watching him, his blue eyes sharp and curious, as if Kris is a particularly interesting breed of strange.

Kris looks at Adam's boots, black and littered with straps and studs, they're shiny, alien, much like Adam himself.

"I like your boots," Kris says, and Adam's answering grin is like watching the sun rise after a week of solid rain. Kris realizes he's never seen him smile before.

"They're awesome, aren't they?"

It's a rhetorical question but Kris still nods, and the smile he shares with Adam isn't fake at all.

*

Kris realizes that his aunt and uncle are doing the best they can, but they never had children for a reason and they just don't know how to handle Kris. They don't know what to do with the really dark days, when Kris refuses to get out of bed, lying prostrate under the covers and staring up at the ceiling with red-rimmed eyes, and they don't know what to do with the really good days when Kris feels as if he's got too much energy, jitters running just beneath the surface of his skin and his mouth moving a mile a minute.

They don't know how to handle the panic attacks, other than to offer his pills and an emergency meeting with his therapist, and they don't how to handle Kris being like every other teenager ever, moody and testy, private one moment and over-sharing the next. They try, but there's no handy manual for how to deal with a kid like Kris, and most of the time Kris thinks he leaves them flailing.

At seventeen Kris feels almost normal. He's still sad, he'll always be, but the really bad days are few and far between, the panic attacks so rare they're almost extinct, and he hasn't been on anti-depressants for almost a year. Spring is always harsh though, one milestone after another, starting with his mother's birthday and ending with The End, and he spends more time hiding out in empty classrooms than he's done in the last year put together.

It's harder without the numbing effect of the pills but somehow it's also better, as if he's finally able to _feel_ the things he's supposed to feel. His therapist calls it progress. Kris just calls it life.

*

The fourth time Kris runs into Adam, it's literally, and the impact of the blow brings them both to their knees but for different reasons. Adam goes down clutching his nose that's bleeding from the way he knocked it against Kris's head, Kris goes down with his mind full of big, black, fire, pain.

Adam pinches his nose and tries to keep the blood from getting on his shirt while Kris sits down hard, trying to force air into his constricting lungs while his pulse roars in his ears, too fast and too loud. He doesn't know what Adam's doing, or even where he is, until Adam's arm wraps around his shoulders and his mouth murmurs something low and soothing against his ear. Adam's cast is heavy against Kris's skin, and Adam's good hand curls around Kris's knee. Kris isn't embarrassed about the way his entire body turns into Adam, the panic slowly subsiding while Kris focuses on his breathing.

The moment he stops trembling Kris starts to feel stupid; he doesn't like to let his guard down. He blinks his eyes open to survey the damage and finds Adam staring at him, prompting a blush to rise in Kris's pale cheeks. Adam's nose is swollen and red, and there's blood smeared on his chin and the front of his shirt, adding a touch of too real to the psychedelic print. Adam's eyes are _really_ blue up close.

"I'm sorry 'bout your nose," Kris says, dismayed to notice his voice still sounds shaky and weak.

"It's okay," Adam answers, still looking at Kris as if he's likely to explode any minute now.

Somewhere in the distance the bell rings, but neither of them moves. Adam's arm is still across Kris's shoulders and in the pit of Kris's belly something stirs.

*

The next day Matt asks if it's true that Kris socked Adam in the face for planting one on him, leaning over his lunch tray with the kind of hungry expression on his face that means he's just dying to tattle. Kris thinks that people are stupid and idly says:

"If he planted one of me, I'd kiss him back. I think he's hot."

In retrospect, it was probably not the best idea he ever had. Before lunch is over rumor has it that they are boyfriends, and when school ends for the day general consensus is that they're waiting for Kris to turn eighteen so that they can run off to Vegas and get married. Kris wishes he could take it back, because he never meant to put Adam on the spot like that, but he finds that he's strangely zen about everyone thinking - _knowing_ \- that he's gay.

*

The fifth time Kris ends up alone with Adam is in the auditorium. Kris likes to sneak in after hours to play the piano, because his aunt and uncle don't have one, and the baby grand sitting on the side of the stage makes him feel as if he's a concert pianist playing to an audience even if he's mediocre at best.

This time though, the stage is already taken, and Kris finds that he doesn't really mind. Adam can _sing_. Kris already knew as much from his reluctant sideline participation in the last school play (he doubts Adam even remembers he was there), but this is a different kind of singing altogether. This is the kind of singing that lifts the roof off of Madison Square Garden and makes millions of fangirls cry into their pillows at night. This is Adam in his element, and Kris is mesmerized.

When the last note rings out Kris claps, nearly startling Adam out of his skin. Adam squints into the darkness for a moment, before he spots Kris and his posture relaxes.

"Oh, it's you," he says and Kris thinks he could sound a little more enthusiastic, especially considering their upcoming nuptials.

"You're amazing," Kris says, slowly walking down the aisle towards the stage. His heart flutters like a trapped bird and the knots in his stomach tie themselves tighter with every step closer to Adam. Kris wonders if this is what it's like to have a crush; he's a bit rusty after spending so long being numb.

"I know," Adam says, proud and sheepish all at once, and it's endearing, somehow.

Adam's hair is black and blue, his black-lined eyes proud and defiant, his nose straight and regal, no longer swollen from when he knocked it against Kris's head, his legs are three miles long, and there's a certain softness to his belly that Kris can't stop looking at. He makes Kris feels weird all over, but it's a good kind of weird, the kind that doesn't make him want to stay in bed all day with the covers pulled over his face.

"Do you sing?" Adam asks, when Kris walks up the stairs to that leads to the stage.

"Not like you," Kris answers. He doesn't necessarily think that's a bad thing, and he likes Adam's answering shrug.

"Sing me something."

Kris takes a seat at the piano, pleased by Adam's surprised look, and his fingers finds their melody without the input of his brain. He sings _Ain't No Sunshine_ like it was probably never meant to be sung, raw and scratchy, with images of Tasha dancing through his head. He thinks he might be crying with the last few repeats of _Anytime she goes away_ but that's okay because Adam joins him on the bench, helping him through it with his voice pitched low to match Kris's.

When Kris stops playing, Adam puts his good hand over Kris's, lacing their fingers together and they sit in the darkness holding hands to the beat of Kris's pumping heart and shallow breaths. It's not Kris's best performance, not even close, but it might be the one that means the most.

*

Kris keeps a picture of Tasha in his wallet. It's from her first day of school and her hair is gathered into pigtails with bows on them and she's wearing the pink ruffled dress that she loved so much that she once refused to take it off for a whole week. Sometimes Kris takes it out just to remind himself what she _really_ looked like because the images in his head are scarily fragile -- a flash of sandy brown hair spread out over a white pillow, the tilt of her smile, the softness of her cheeks and the way she always smelled of cinnamon. Sometimes looking at her picture helps him breathe, sometimes it just makes it worse.

It’s February 12 -- her birthday -- and it's a really bad day.

Somehow Kris gets through his first period and his second, but when lunch rolls around and his classmates spill towards the cafeteria he stays back, tucking himself into a corner of an empty classroom and trying to remember how to breathe. He takes out her picture, staring at it until his vision blurs and then he cries with his forehead pressed to his knees and his fingers digging into his calves, until he feels as if he's got nothing left inside.

That's how Adam finds him, and somehow Kris thinks he's been looking. He doesn't say anything and he doesn't ask, he just slides down against the wall, close enough that his arm rests against Kris's and crosses his legs at the ankle.

 _He knows_ , Kris thinks, but then he tells him anyway.

"My sister would have turned twelve today," he says, fumbling around the floor beside him until he finds the picture, holding it out for Adam. "This is her."

Adam takes the picture without comment, looking at it for a good long while. "She's beautiful," he says.

"She loved that dress," Kris whispers. He hesitates. "I… I still have it."

Tonight he will take it out from its hiding place at the bottom of his closet and fold it neatly under his pillow. He will sing Happy Birthday for her and then he will cry himself to sleep. Tomorrow he will be shaky and groggy and his head will pound with a migraine, but he will be okay and it will hurt a little less.

Adam wraps his arm around Kris's shoulders and Kris rest his head against Adam's chest. It doesn't make it better, not really, but it smoothes the jagged edge of the pain, making it easier to breathe.

*

On Valentine's Day Kris gets ten cards through the in-school mail, but he sends only one. It's a card with Eeyore holding a single red rose in his mouth and with a slight flush to his cheeks. Inside it says Be My Valentine. Kris scribbles _I want you to kiss me_ underneath and puts Adam's name on the envelope. He doesn't sign it.

Chance dictates that Kris is in the commons when Adam receives his card and even from across the room Kris can see the hectic flush of Adam's cheeks and the smile he's trying to suppress. He's not brave enough to catch Adam's eyes and he slips out through the exit doors unnoticed. He wonders if Adam suspects it's from him, or if he wants it to be.

*

The next time Kris meets Adam is outside the student counselor's office. He's got this tight, pinched, look on his face and when he spots Kris his eyes narrow.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I got an appointment," Kris mumbles, gesturing towards the door. The last thing he wants is for Adam to think he's following him.

"They make you go, too?" Adam asks, eyebrows shooting up. "But you're not… I mean…" He trails off, eyes skittering to the side. "People like you," he finishes.

Kris licks his lips, eyes dropping to the floor. "I… uh… I still have a few classes to make up for the time I was in the hospital."

"Oh."

Kris lifts his eyes, nervous for what he'll see on Adam's face, but Adam's already walking away. He can't help but to feel as if he just failed some kind of test.

*

It's a week before Kris is alone with Adam again, this time it's in the bathroom and Adam's bleeding from a shallow cut on his forehead. His shoulders tighten when Kris walks in, but he doesn't look away from the mirror, hands curled hard around the edges of the sink.

"You're bleeding," Kris says, grabbing a wad of paper and moving closer to press it against the cut.

"I don't need your pity," Adam snarls, jerking away from Kris's touch.

"I wasn't…"

Kris bites down on his lower lip, taking a step back when Adam makes a move to shove him.

"Get out," Adam says, low and even, eyes burning with an emotion Kris can't even begin to understand. "Just GET OUT."

Kris keeps back until his back hits the door and he fumbles behind him for the handle. "You should talk to Ms. Jenkins," he says. "You shouldn't… You shouldn't let them do that to you."

"I talk to Ms. Jenkins. Every. Fucking. Week." Adam growls, punctuating each word with a sharp gesture. "Does it look like it _helps?_ "

Kris shakes his head mutely, trembling with the force of Adam's anger. "But your arm," he whispers. "That's going too far."

Adam snorts. "I tripped on the fucking stairs," he says, voice pitched dangerously low. "You shouldn't believe everything people say about me."

"I don't," Kris whispers, but Adam isn't listening.

"I bet you sent that Valentine," Adam says, voice growing sharper, meaner. "Did you think I'd be happy? Huh? Did you think that knowing some pathetic loser out there wants me to kiss him would make feel all better?"

Kris's cheeks burns with embarrassment and his chest feels so tight he can't breathe. He saw Adam's face when he got that card; he knows that it made Adam happy.

"I wasn't… I'm not…"

Adam takes a step closer and Kris finally finds the handle, escaping out into the relative safety of the hallway. He almost expects Adam to follow him but the door falls shut behind him and he's left to the erratic beat of his heart.

*

That night at dinner Kris picks listlessly at his food, a tight ball of unease still upsetting his stomach. He thought that he and Adam had an understanding, some kind of kinship born out of their alienation, but obviously he was wrong. Every time he closes his eyes he can see the sneer twisting Adam's lips and he wonders what he did to deserve such animosity.

"You okay?" his aunt asks, and when Kris looks up he finds her watching him, eyes soft and worried.

"Yeah," Kris says, forcing a smile. "I'm good."

His uncle is still at the office doing last minute preparations for one of his more high profile cases and it's just the two of them at the table. His aunt, Amber, is a lawyer too, but lately she's been making an effort to always be home in time for dinner, knowing how rough this season usually is on him.

"Are you really?" She asks, and it's the closest she's come to asking about _that_ in over a year.

Kris smiles, pushing his lasagna across his plate. "Yeah… just… boy trouble, I suppose."

She gapes at him, mouth hanging open comically wide and it takes Kris a moment to realize what he just said. He almost wants to take it back, smooth it over and claim that he meant boy as in he is a boy, but even if it does it will still be true inside and she has to find out some time.

"You're… you're gay?" she finally asks.

Kris swallows thickly. He doesn't know if he's gay exactly, but he likes Adam more than he's ever liked any girl so he supposes it's true.

"I… yeah," he whispers, giving up any pretense of eating. "I'm gay."

He keeps his eyes trained on the table top, tracing the faint lines visible under the dark finish.

"Oh honey," Amber says, getting up from her chair to move around the table and sit down next to Kris. "Sweetheart."

She pulls him into a tight hug and when she presses her face into his cheek her eyes are wet. "I wish your mom could be here right now," she says tersely. "Sometimes I miss her so much I can't even breathe."

Kris wants his mom too, and his dad, and his sister, and he misses them all the time, but Amber and Peter is what he has now and that will have to be enough. They cling to each other for a good long while, wet cheeks pressed hard together, until Amber regains some of her composure and straightens up.

"So," she says with a watery smile. "Tell me about this boy."

Kris does.

*

On Monday at school Kris sees Adam everywhere, in the commons, in the hallways, in the cafeteria, even in the library. He always seems to be moving away yet Kris can swear he feels Adam's eyes on him whenever he has his back turned. It's exhausting and when the day is finally over Kris is more than happy to go home.

Adam catches up with him just outside the school, face tight and back rigid. Kris eyes him with a certain sense of trepidation; he doesn't want Adam to yell at him again.

"So…" Adam says, stuffing his good hand into the pocket of his too tight jeans and rocking back on his heels. "I'm… uhm… I'm really sorry about Friday that was… stupid."

Kris wants to stay mad at him, he really does, but Adam really looks like shit, face pale under his makeup and lips worried raw.

"I mean… I know you didn't send the card," Adam says quickly. "It was probably just someone trying to mess with my head and I guess I fell for it." He looks away, rocking back on his heels again. "And I really appreciate our… uhm… friendship."

He looks acutely embarrassed, almost squirming under Kris's frank gaze, and Kris really wants to give him a hug, but the yard's still full of students pretending to not be looking at them and Kris doesn't really want to add fuel to the married-in-Vegas rumor.

"It's okay," Kris says instead, smiling. "I forgive you."

Adam looks up with a grin and Kris is kind of struck dumb with how beautiful he is, but luckily Adam doesn't seem to notice.

"So…" Adam says, looking around nervously. "Want to… uhm… do something?"

"Something?" Kris queries. He's pretty sure Adam's not suggesting lewd acts, but there's always hope.

"Like… uh… grab something to eat, or I dunno… go to the mall?"

"Yeah," Kris says. "That'd be cool." He studiously avoids doing a victorious air punch and settles for knocking their shoulders together. "So, you're the native, show me some good times."

He's almost certain he imagines the flair of heat in Adam's eyes. Almost.

  


*

For the next two weeks Kris and Adam hang out after school every day and Kris is as close to happy as he's been in the last three years. The ever-present shadow of sorrow is lighter to carry with company and he laughs more in those fourteen days than he's done in the last three years put together.

Maybe that's how March 10 manages to sneak up on him, maybe that's how he doesn't dwell on that dreaded date until he opens his eyes at four a.m. and thinks: _it's three years today since they died_.

It's a bad day, it's a really bad day, and his aunt calls him in sick without asking. She offers to stay home, stubborn and protective with her own sorrow in her eyes, until Kris shoos her away claiming he'd rather be alone. He's not lying, this kind of mourning isn't easier with company, or so he thinks. He wishes he could handle it like she does, he wishes he could go through the motions and force himself to pretend it's just any day, because it _is_. It's huge and painful and stupid, but it's just another day he has to get through.

He feels guilty all of a sudden for all the times he laughed lately, guilty for feeling giddy and stupid around Adam, guilty for the extra ten minutes he spends in front of the mirror every morning, trying to do something with his hair. He feels guilty for all the hours that he didn't think of them, guilty for moving on, guilty for growing up.

He doesn't cry. He lies prostrate on his bed with eyes burning and his chest aching, but he doesn't cry and somehow that makes him feel like a failure, too.

*

Around noon the doorbell ringing for the twentieth time forces Kris to get out of bed. He feels lightheaded and woozy and he keeps one hand against the wall while he walks down the stairs. He's not expecting visitors and he looks out through the peep hole before even thinking about opening the door.

It's Adam who's standing outside, and Kris rocks back on his heels not sure what to do at the same time Adam rings the doorbell again. The sound is startlingly loud standing in the hallway and Kris reaches out to fumble the locks open without giving himself time to think about it.

Adam looks almost surprised when he sees him, eyes opening wide, and he lets his hand fall to his side.

"Uh… hi," he says.

"What are you doing here?" Kris asks and he knows that he sounds pissy, but it's too late to change his tone.

Adam's arm is still in a cast, dirty and a little worse for wear by now, and somehow it makes Kris's chest hurt even more to know that he's the only one from school who signed it.

"Mrs. Alamon said that you were sick," Adam says hesitantly. "I… uh… I just wanted to check in on you."

"I'm not sick," Kris says, voice still the wrong side of pissy. "I'm sad."

"Oh." Adam worries at his lower lip. "Do you… uhm… do you want me to leave?"

Kris shrugs. He doesn't know what he wants.

"I think I'll stay for a while," Adam says, voice soft, _gentle_ , and Kris steps aside to let him in.

*

Adam makes sandwiches for them both. It's funny to watch him flail around nervously in Amber's high-tech kitchen and Kris almost smiles twice. The sandwich is good (Swiss cheese, smoked ham, tomatoes and lettuce) and eating actually makes Kris's head feel a little less heavy and his chest a little less tight, but then that might be Adam.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Adam asks later, when they're holed up in Kris's room.

He's holding Tasha's pink dress in his long-fingered hands, careful, as though his touch might make it crumble, and Kris's chest is aching again.

"No," he says, but then he does anyway.

He doesn't remember much of the accident, just brief snatches and pieces and it's impossible to tell what is made up and what is real. He remembers even less of his first month in the hospital, too out of it most of the time to even understand what people were telling him, but he remembers what came after with painful clarity.

He tells Adam all of it, he talks until his throat feels parched and his head is pounding, and then he talks some more. He’s never told anyone the entire story before, and he wishes he could make Adam understand how much it means that he's listening now.

When he finally stops talking Adam's cheeks are glistening in the faint light that seeps in through the blinds and Kris's chest feels hollow. They curl up together in the middle of the bed and Kris thinks that maybe he'll be okay, pushing his face into the crook of Adam's neck and holding on tight.

*

Kris drifts with his head pillowed against Adam's shoulder and his fingers curled into Adam's shirt. He doesn't dwell on the bad things, he already spent too much time doing that today and maybe his therapist is right when she says that he doesn't have to hold on to his grief so tightly. Logically he knows that no one will judge him for being happy, but it's hard to let go of the sorrow. As fucked up as it is, it's been his companion for a long time now and he almost doesn't remember what he was like when he wasn't sad all the time.

He opens his mouth, wanting to say something about how Adam makes him feel, but what comes out is a surprise even to him. "Why do you think that Valentine was a fake?" he asks.

Adam snorts, but Kris can feel the way he tenses, muscles pulling tight against Kris's cheek. "It's kind of obvious, isn't it?" Adam retorts, fake cheerful and brittle.

"Not to me," Kris answers, reluctantly rolling over on his back to give Adam the space he seems to need.

Adam takes a moment to answer. "I'm not exactly what anyone would call a catch."

Adam's voice is too dull, and when Kris turns his head he can see the nervous way Adam fiddles with the comforter. Kris licks his lips, heart tripping.

"If I'd signed it, would you have believed me then?" he asks, pretending that he can't hear his voice crack.

Adam slowly turns his head against the pillows to meet Kris's eyes. His eyeliner is smudged, and there are tear tracks on his cheeks, stark against his makeup. His chin is a bit soft underneath and baby fat still clings to his cheeks. He steals Kris's breath right out of his lungs and when Adam moves closer, Kris lets him.

It's not until Adam's poised above him, lips parted and eyes trained on Kris's mouth that Kris raises his hands, pushing them flat against Adam's chest in sudden panic.

"Don't kiss me," he says, too loud, too frantic, and Adam flinches away as if Kris slapped him.

He scrambles off the bed and is moving towards the door before Kris gets a chance to stop him.

"Wait," Kris calls after him, rolling off the bed and getting to his feet. "Adam… Wait."

But he's too slow and when he makes his way downstairs the front door is already slamming shut behind Adam. Kris stops just inside it, pressing his flaming forehead against the cold wood and squeezing his eyes shut.

"I just don't want today to be our anniversary," he murmurs, but the door doesn't care.

*

The following day Adam does a very good job at avoiding Kris, probably made easier by the fact that Kris didn't sleep a wink all night and has the reaction time of a zombie. Every time Kris spots Adam in passing, he's long gone before Kris has even managed to get his feet to shuffle in the right direction, and by early afternoon Kris has stopped trying. He really wants to talk to Adam, but he's so tired he can't think straight and the second time he falls asleep in History class Mrs. Alamon sends him home.

He’s just about to leave, shuffling through the commons with his bag slung over his back when Adam's class is let out, spilling into the hall in a colorful mess with Adam as a black beanstalk in the middle. He's dressed in his comfort outfit – black skinny jeans, black t-shirt, black boots, and a tangle of necklaces – seeing it makes Kris uncomfortable and he's pretty sure that's not how comfort outfits are supposed to work.

Adam is almost upon him before he spots Kris and the deer in the headlights look makes Kris's stomach clench.

"Please don't run away," Kris says hoarsely and to his great surprise Adam doesn't.

The commons is not exactly the ideal setting for what Kris wants to say. He can already feel the curious eyes on them, and he's pretty sure the girl just brushing past him said something about Vegas. His sleep deprivation has him just paranoid enough to assume it's about them and while he doesn't care about people thinking they're planning their marriage, he really doesn't want people to know _anything_ about their real relationship. He doesn't want the true nature of their awkward stumbling courtship to be a school laughingstock, because they're doing it the only way they know how and screw everyone else.

"Can we talk outside?" Kris asks, and Adam nods curtly with his mouth pressed into a thin line before leading the way towards the exit.

Kris’s tired feet can't keep up and when he steps outside he has a sudden panicked vision of Adam running away after all, but then he spots Adam gesturing at him from the corner of the main building and lurches after him as quickly as he can.

Adam leads him to a secluded spot at the back of the main building, leaning his shoulders back against the wall while he stares defiantly at Kris, looking for all the world like he doesn't give a fuck. Kris worries at the inside of his cheek and tries to make the words align right in his head.

"I think you're beautiful," he says, trying for Adam's defiant stare, but he's pretty sure he's not anywhere near close. "And I do want you to kiss me, or I want to kiss you, or… it doesn’t matter how we do it."

Adam raises his eyebrows, but his cheeks are flushing a pleased pink.

"I just…" And now Kris is blushing too. "I just didn't want yesterday to be our anniversary," he mutters. It was much easier to say it to the door, now he just feels stupid as if he's pinning too much on their not-relationship, bringing hopes into it that he has no right to have considering the fact that they can't seem to stay friends for more than a week at a time without messing up.

"Oh," Adam says.

Kris looks up, hesitant and nervous, to meet Adam's blue-eyed gaze. Adam smiles, sweet and a little shy, and he reaches out with his good hand to touch Kris's shoulder. Kris moves into the touch, letting Adam tug him closer until he faceplants into Adam's solid chest.

They cling to each other until the bell rings. Kris's entire body thrums in time with his heartbeat and he's only a little disappointed that Adam doesn't try to kiss him right away.

"I'll see you after school, okay?" Adam says, pushing Kris away. His eyes dart around nervously as if he's afraid someone will come looking for them.

"Okay," Kris says, smiling. "Mrs. Alamon sent me home, so come by my place?"

Adam frowns. "You okay?" he asks.

Kris nods. "Just tired."

Adam snorts. "I wish she sent _me_ home for being tired," he says.

Kris looks away into the distance, towards the busy road beyond the school. "No," he says softly. "You don't."

It takes Adam a moment to get it, but when he does his fingers curl around Kris's shoulder, warm and sure, and he murmurs, "Of course not."

*

Adam shows up after four with scraped palms, skinned knees and his breath stuck in his throat. He's got this wary look on his face, as if he's just waiting for Kris to say something so that he can blow up. Kris doesn't. He just leads Adam into the downstairs bathroom and sits down on the toilet seat to watch while Adam washes the dirt off his hands.

Adam's got his mouth pressed into a thin line and he keeps catching his own eyes in the mirror. He looks as if he would have cried if Kris wasn't there and Kris knows everything about how that feels.

"I hate them," Adam says tersely. "I really, really do."

Kris doesn't protest, because right now he does too, even if he doesn't know who they are.

"They have no right…" Adam clamps his mouth shut, scrubbing viciously at his palms. "Whatever I do it's never enough, you know?"

He stops scrubbing and just rests his hands against the edges of the sink, staring at his own face in the mirror.

"Just once I'd like to look at myself and not see what they see," he says softly, almost dreamily, as if he forgot Kris is even there.

"I wish you could look in the mirror and see what I see," Kris murmurs, even though he really just wants to knock some sense into Adam's stupid head.

"But you're crazy," Adam answers. "Everyone knows that."

It stings, of course it does, but it's not like Kris didn't know what everyone says about him behind his back. Crazy Kris with his panic attacks and his breathing time. Crazy Kris who lost his family.

"If you really believe that maybe you should go," Kris says dully, looking down on his hands. He doesn't feel crazy, he just feels sad.

In his mind they're the perfect pair, like two odd birds in a flock of pigeons, but maybe Adam doesn't feel the same way. Maybe he's drawn to Kris only because he's offering. Surely it's a novelty for someone who's used to being rejected.

"I don't think you're crazy," Adam says, finally pulling his eyes away from the mirror. "I'm sorry."

Kris kind of hopes they'll be able to navigate their way towards dysfunctionally functional one of these days. Then maybe they'd stop hurting each other all the time. Kris hands Adam a clean towel and watches him dry his hands, his black nail polish is chipped along the tips and the edge of his cast is soaked and dirty.

"How's your arm?" Kris asks.

Adam lifts it, as if he forgot about it all together, and flexes his fingers. "Good," he says. "They're gonna remove the cast next week."

"Cool."

The silence stretches out between them and Kris flushes uncomfortably. He really doesn't know how to do this.

"Do you want something to eat?" he asks. "My aunt and uncle are working late, but there's pasta in the fridge."

"Okay," Adam says, and Kris leads the way towards the kitchen.

*

Conversation is awkward at first, stilted and full of too-long silences, but then the topic shifts to music and the awkwardness is washed away in a flurry of words. It's kind of funny how alike they are for all their differences; even when they don't like the same kind of music, they feel the same way about it and that makes all the difference somehow.

After dinner they clean up together and then they move upstairs to Kris's room. The blinds are open this time, the room flooded with light, and Kris kind of wishes he'd left them down. He sits down on the edge of the bed, knotting his hands nervously while Adam explores, wondering if he's only imagining the way the air feels charged.

"Your aunt and uncle are kind of rich, huh?" Adam says, smoothing a hand over Kris's state-of-the-art computer.

Kris shrugs, he'll be kind of rich too when he's old enough to manage his inheritance, but he'd rather have been piss poor and happy.

"They kind of think buying me nice things will make everything better," he says with a shrug.

"Does it?" Adam asks, looking at Kris over his shoulder.

Kris shakes his head. "It used to bother me," he says. "But I guess it's the only thing they knew how to do. They never wanted kids of their own, never planned for one, and while they never hesitated to take me in I think they got a lot more than they bargained for."

"Did you ever tell them how you feel?" Adam asks, moving over to sit down next to Kris on the bed.

Kris shrugs. "What's the point? It'll only make them feel bad."

He did tell them once, he told them about everything, when he was moving through the anger portion of grief. He's not proud of how he acted and he _is_ grateful that they took him in, even if it meant leaving everything he knew behind. He doesn't think that staying in Arkansas would have been easier; the short amount of time he spent there between getting out of the hospital and moving here was painfully awkward with people walking on eggshells around him.

Adam turns his hands palms up against his thighs, and Kris's eyes are drawn to the shallow scrapes marring his skin.

"Does it hurt?" he asks.

Adam gives his a sideways look and shakes his head minutely. "My pride took a worse hit," he admits. "I tripped over my own feet."

Kris half smiles at that. "You seem to be doing that a lot."

Adam turns his hands over and rubs them against his thighs. "They never actually touch me anymore," he says. "There was an… incident last year. I'm sure you remember it."

Kris nods, biting down on his lower lip. Everyone knows about the jocks beating up Adam, but somehow he never really connected the dots before.

"I don't know what the principal said to them," Adam says, keeping his face turned away. "But they haven't raised their hands against me since. It's just…" he trails off, and Kris reaches over to touch his arm, lending his support for whatever it's worth. "I'm so scared of them," Adam mumbles. "And they know it and I just keep… I run into doors, lockers… I trip over my own goddamned feet to get away and it just makes it worse, it gives them fuel…" He trails off, the muscles under Kris's fingers knotting while Kris struggles to find the right thing to say.

"What they're doing is still wrong," he murmurs. "They have no right to say those things to you. They have no right to threaten you."

Adam looks up then, smiling wryly. "If I rat on them again then _everyone_ will hate me. Ms. Jenkins keeps trying to draw some kind of confession out of me, but I just tell her I'm clumsy. It's not worth it."

Kris wants to protest, wants to tell Adam that he should do it anyway, but he knows that Adam's right, telling on the jocks would make his life into a new kind of hell. Sometimes there's just no way to win.

"I just hate to think that they're getting away with it," Kris mumbles.

"Yeah," Adam agrees with a soft sigh. "Me, too."

They sit in silence for a few moments before Adam suddenly chuckles. "I really should be everyone's favorite person for not making us suffer through another round of lectures on respecting each other," he says, nudging Kris with his shoulder. "Even I thought those were painfully boring."

Kris laughs. "Oh my God, those were awful. Principal Moore should have said it with a song."

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T," Adam sings under his breath and Kris grins, joining him for the rest of the refrain. Maybe he's biased but he really likes the way they sound together.

*

They keep the conversation light for a while. Adam tells Kris about his best friend Danielle who goes to another school, prompted by Kris asking about the names on his cast, which gets them to talking about Kris’s friends back in Arkansas, the ones he still keeps in touch with, and somehow that turns conversations to kisses, or rather the people Adam’s kissed. It's fine until Adam shifts so that his arm brushes against Kris's and Kris jumps, his heart suddenly in his throat.

"We don't have to kiss, you know?" Adam says, obviously amused by how fast Kris's mind went there. "I kinda like hanging out with you anyway."

"I want to," Kris says, stubborn and nervous, even if everything feels all wrong. It's not supposed to go like this, it's supposed to be natural - spur of the moment - not premeditated and planned.

Adam stands up and holds out his good hand for Kris to take. Kris lets himself be pulled up and keeps his hold on Adam's hand when he's standing. It makes him feel a little better, because for him that’s how it all started; holding hands in the dark auditorium.

He tilts his head back to look up at Adam, wetting his lips nervously. The way Adam's eyes follow the movement of his tongue makes his stomach flutter and his chest feel tight. Kris wants to point out that he's never actually done this before, at least not outside of childish games of spin the bottle, but then he thinks that he probably doesn't have to.

Adam uses Kris's hold of his hand to pull him closer, close enough that their bodies touch and Kris blushes with his startled gasp. He wants to pull back, wants to explain how numb he’s been and how awkward this feels. He wants to tell Adam about the anti-depressants and their side-effects and how it's taken almost a year for him to even remember how it felt to be hard.

But then Adam bends forward, brushing his lips over Kris's in a whispered kiss, and Kris forgets all about being nervous. He moves his hands to Adam's shoulders, holding on tight, and when Adam kisses him again, it's for real. It's a little dry at first, and a lot awkward before they figure out whose nose goes where, but then it's wet and hot and amazing, and Kris digs his fingers into Adam's skin hard enough to leave bruises.

Adam's lips are soft and perfect, applying just the right pressure and when his tongue snakes into Kris's mouth, Kris accidentally bites him and shivers down to his toes. Adam's hands are on his hips, firm and unyielding, and it's not until he shifts, sliding one leg in between Kris's that Kris realizes he's hard.

"Oh," he gasps, pulling back wide-eyed and breathless. "Adam…"

"I wanted to kiss you the moment I saw you," Adam murmurs, peppering kisses all over Kris's face. His cheeks, his chin, his forehead and then his mouth again. "Never thought I would get the chance."

"Adam," Kris says again, weak and useless, shuddering when another shift makes Adam's thigh rub up against him.

It's almost too much, overwhelming, a flood wave of emotion over a dry wasteland, and when Adam pulls away again, Kris folds forward pushing his flaming face into the safe crook of Adam's neck. Adam smells amazing, like makeup, product, leather and cologne came together to create something new, something fantastic.

"You smell like a sparkly unicorn," Kris mumbles, because it makes sense in his head and he wants to say _something_.

Adam laughs and wraps his arms tight around Kris's back. "Out of the two of us you're the sparkly unicorn," he mumbles, pressing a kiss against Kris's temple. " _My_ sparkly unicorn."

Kris likes the sound of that. Maybe they're not perfect and maybe they'll hurt each other along the way, but there's no doubt in his mind that this is _right_ , and maybe even a little _crazy_ too. That thought makes Kris smile against Adam's neck and this time it's for all the right reasons.

 **~The End~**

Thanks for reading! ♥


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